1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to monitoring task processing in a distributed system environment.
2. Background Art
In a distributed system, tasks are partitioned into subtasks for execution on multiple computing devices within the system. When subtasks execute on multiple computing devices, there is a need to monitor the progress of each subtask, as well as the progress of a task as a whole.
Some conventional distributed systems use external messaging systems to monitor subtasks. The external messaging systems, however, add complexity to the applications that execute subtasks in a distributed system, during, for example, application packaging, installation and deployment stages. Additionally, the external messaging systems add to the development cost when they are developed in-house or to maintenance cost when they are purchased from a third-party vendor. Those external messaging systems are typically implemented using a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) in conjunction with an Extensible Markup Language (XML).
Therefore, what is needed are a system, method and computer program product for monitoring tasks in a distributed system environment that is internal to an application that executes in the distributed system.